A renegade part of Moldova once boasted it would become a Russian-speaking Switzerland. Now without gas, its leader assured residents, “We will not allow a societal collapse.”

The head of Moldova’s breakaway region Transnistria has urged residents to burn firewood for heating and warned that blackouts cannot be avoided, after Moscow stopped supplying gas via Ukraine.

Moldova faces a security crisis, Prime Minister Dorin Recean said on Friday after its separatist pro-Moscow Transdniestria region, cut off from supplies of Russian gas, closed factories, restricted central heating and imposed rolling power blackouts.